Politics Archives

Tuesday

July 15, 2025

How Trump can win the Nobel Peace Prize

Openly, President Trump has expressed a desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This is understandable. It is “the world’s most prestigious prize.” That is the judgment of the Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary World History. The prize is associated with some golden names: Albert Schweitzer, Andrei Sakharov, Mother Teresa. All of those were Nobel peace laureates. Of course, Yasser Arafat was too. The history of the prize is messy, like history itself. Last month, the Pakistani government nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. That was for his intervention in the Pakistani-Indian clash over Kashmir. The Indians were less keen on his intervention, but that is another matter. A veteran Pakistani politician, Senator Mushahid Hussain, had a wry, realistic comment.

Monday

July 14, 2025

Jacob Heilbrunn

Has Putin turned Trump into a Russia hawk?

No, President Trump wasn’t referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin when he talked at a White House luncheon today about a “stupid guy” and a “knucklehead.” But he did make it clear that his long-standing bromance with the Kremlin’s big cheese has turned out to be unrequited, much to his distress. Trump lamented that Putin’s talk about peace was so much rodomontade, amounting to more than a “nice phone call” followed by a bunch of missiles lobbed at Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. It was Melania, he said, who had noted to him the inconsistency between Putin’s words and deeds. Perhaps Melania, more than anyone else, injected some iron into Trump’s previously anemic posture towards Moscow.

Neal Pollack

Will Trump rename soccer?

On the one-year anniversary of the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt on his life, President Trump celebrated on stage with Chelsea FC after they won the FIFA Club World Cup in Giants Stadium. No one dancing around the trophy looked happier than Trump, who appeared like an aged striker who’d ducked into the locker room to put on a blue suit and a red tie. "I knew he was going to be here but I didn't know he was going to be on the stand when we lifted the trophy. I was a bit confused,” said Chelsea FC star Cole Palmer. Above all else, Donald Trump celebrates winning, and this was a big win, complete with confetti shower. Plus, you can’t discount the fact that on this day, of all days, Trump was just happy to be alive, the greatest win of all.

Joe Biden signing not with autopen (Getty)

Cockburn

Biden attempts to straighten the record on his autopen

President Joe Biden granted 1,500 pardons in what was the largest single-day act of clemency by a US president back in January, on his final full day in office. But these were not the typical pardons since Biden did not actually sit down, uncap a fat Sharpie and draw out his signature. No: the pardons were granted with the autopen, and the Department of Justice and congressional Republicans have been investigating whether the former president was actually aware they were being signed. After seven months of crickets, Biden finally broke his silence on these accusations, last Thursday. He spoke to the New York Times, maintaining he "made every decision," and he did it "because there were a lot of them." The January 19 pardons did two things.

David Sypher Jr.

Biden admits he had no idea who he pardoned with autopen

Let’s not pretend this is normal. President Joe Biden has admitted that he didn’t personally approve the full list of individuals he pardoned on his final day in office. Instead, he delegated the task to his staff and gave them permission to use an autopen – a mechanical device that stamps his signature – to push through thousands of clemency grants in bulk.Legally, this is allowed. Morally? It’s disgraceful.Presidential clemency is one of the few powers in the Constitution left entirely to the judgment of one person. It’s meant to be exercised with moral clarity, human reflection and a sense of final responsibility. What Biden did was effectively outsource that sacred duty to nameless staffers armed with email chains and eligibility “criteria.

Neal Pollack

Why Trump can’t escape the Epstein Files drama

President Trump remains baffled over the endlessly churning Epstein List controversy. “We're on one Team, MAGA, and I don't like what's happening,” he Truth Socialed Saturday. “We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and 'selfish people' are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.” Calling Epstein “a guy who never dies” raised some eyebrows with the Alex Jones wing of the party. But for the non-conspiracy minded, the MAGA infighting over the Epstein List, whose release was a major Trump campaign promise, has us reaching for another bowl of popcorn. Trump’s exasperation began to show at last week’s cabinet meeting, when a reporter asked him a question about the Epstein List. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

Cockburn

Musk’s chatbot stumbles again

No living human has had a week as tumultuous as Grok, the Elon Musk-sponsored AI that lives inside X for our, and its, amusement. If people were still making the Downfall Hitler meme videos, Grok’s progress would be an apt topic. Last week, Grok started spewing out anti-Semitic posts after a flurry of troll prompts. Soon after, X shut down its newly-created “MechaHitler,” saying "We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X. xAI is training only truth-seeking and thanks to the millions of users on X, we are able to quickly identify and update the model where training could be improved.

Brandon Goldman

Zohran Mamdani’s radical parents

Voters often pay a premium for socialism. It’s the modern-day equivalent of free-range eggs or an electric car. Zohran Mamdani, a self-described “democratic socialist,” embodies that premium. In New York’s Democratic mayoral primary election, he got blown out of the water with lower-income voters – but won overwhelmingly with young, white, college-educated idealists desperate for the revolution. He would be the furthest left mayor New York City has ever seen if elected in November. While his policy prescriptions – city-run grocery stores, higher taxes on the wealthy and a diminished police presence – are radical proposals, it is his deep devotion to socialism that truly defies convention. There is no question that Mamdani loathes the West.

Sunday

July 13, 2025

Neal Pollack

The Ten Commandments of Texas

Blessed greetings From Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott recently signed a bill that will require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Teachers must display the Commandments as a poster or framed copy, at least 16 inches by 20 inches, in a typeface that is clearly legible from any part of the room. Supporters of the bill say the Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of American history, though they may have that confused with the Ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights.

David Sypher Jr.

The mask slips at Socialism 2025

From college campuses to the media, socialism is increasingly getting repackaged as a solution to every problem: homelessness, housing, policing and education. For a generation grappling with high rent, student debt and political distrust, the collectivist utopia may sound like the moral, modern choice. But it isn't – and this year’s Socialism 2025 conference in Chicago proved just why it is doomed to failure. The conference brought together scholars, activists and self-styled revolutionaries to sketch out what a “just” society might look like. The vision was as radical as it was impractical.

Saturday

July 12, 2025

Gage Klipper

The real scandal of Zohran Mamdani’s college application

While the fact that Zohran Mamdani had identified as black on his Columbia University application stole the headlines, the hack that exposed this information highlighted something much more insidious in the college admissions system.Admitting the accuracy of the leaked data, Mamdani claimed that he was simply trying “to capture the fullness of [his] background” by checking the “Black or African American” box in 2019. New Yorkers raised an eyebrow. But what would have alarmed them more was the revelation buried in the trove of hacked data: that affirmative action is alive and well in America. The leak of Columbia’s admissions data demonstrates that, even after the Supreme Court ruled affirmative action policies unconstitutional in SFFA v.

Friday

July 11, 2025

Charles Lipson

A trio of scandals

“Who will guard the guardians?” That question, posed two millennia ago by the Roman poet, Juvenal, is just as relevant today. It recurs every time we learn of a new political scandal – or suspect one is being hidden from us.

Kara Kennedy

Barron Trump, the enigmatic crypto scion

Every morning, a swarm of black SUVs deliver a 6’ 7” freshman to classes at NYU's Stern School of Business. The journey from Trump Tower takes about 20 minutes, which is enough time for 19-year-old Barron Trump to check his cryptocurrency wallets before settling into the back row of a lecture hall, flanked by Secret Service agents in hoodies and jeans, attempting (and failing) to blend in with students. The scene captures a peculiar tension in the youngest Trump's coming of age: between assimilating and standing out. While his classmates stress over student loans, unpaid internships and how to make their weekly grocery budget go further, Barron has assembled a digital fortune independently of his parents.

Thursday

July 10, 2025

Neal Pollack

Who is Biden’s doctor protecting?

When Joe Biden’s personal physician, Kevin O’Connor, pleaded the Fifth Amendment yesterday during the ongoing congressional hearings about Biden’s mental acuity while in office, it didn’t put suspicions to rest – it amplified them. Why would O’Connor refuse to testify if he had nothing to hide from Congress? He can claim doctor-patient confidentiality all he wants, but it’s not like Congress was asking to see X-rays or blood-test results. What didn’t Biden know and when didn’t he know it? This is about more than just setting straight the historical record. It’s political bloodsport, the Democrats know it, and the whole things smells like a coverup.

Dr. Steven Quay

Biden’s doctor embarrasses the profession

In 2006, freelance journalist Josh Wolf spent 226 days in a federal prison. His crime? Refusing to turn over unpublished video footage and the names of confidential sources to a grand jury. Wolf believed in something larger than himself: the right of a free press to protect its sources. He didn’t take the Fifth. He took the heat. Now fast forward to 2025. President Biden’s longtime personal physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, was reportedly subpoenaed by Congress to answer questions about the president’s health and whether he’d ever been pressured to misrepresent it. Instead of testifying, or refusing on grounds of medical ethics, O’Connor invoked the Fifth Amendment. That’s not courage. That’s self-preservation wrapped in white-coat privilege.

fifth Joe Biden coughing in Rose Garden, July, 2022 (Getty)

David Sypher Jr.

Ketanji Brown Jackson pushes ideology over the Constitution

When a Supreme Court justice warns that the decisions of her colleagues pose an “existential threat to the rule of law,” it’s not just a legal disagreement – it’s a performance. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s recent dissents, particularly in Trump v. Casa, show a troubling shift in the role of a justice. Instead of offering careful counterpoints rooted in constitutional reasoning, she delivers ideological monologues that sound tailor-made for MSNBC clips and Essence Fest applause lines. This isn’t a critique of dissent itself. Dissent is vital to the integrity of the Court. The late Antonin Scalia built an entire legacy on it – scorching in tone, yes, but always grounded in jurisprudence.

Freddy Gray

Will the FBI shed light on the Trump shooting?

Kash Patel and Dan Bongino have this week found out the painful way that running the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a lot harder than podcasting. Having spent years on endless shows suggesting that the "Epstein Files" could reveal the Deep State’s darkest secrets, the now Director and Deputy Director of the FBI find themselves insisting that, contrary to what they may have said, Jeffrey Epstein did, in fact, kill himself; that he did not have a list of blackmailable clients; and that he sexually abused more than 1,000 girls pretty much all by himself.Nobody believes that, of course, and Donald Trump’s angry reaction on Tuesday to a reporter who dared to ask about the most famous sex offender of all time, has done nothing to put the conspiracy theories to rest.

Wednesday

July 9, 2025

Cockburn

The Trump administration is practicing Carmen Sandiego economic theory

President Trump sent out another round of passive-aggressive tariff letters to foreign leaders Wednesay, which he posted to Truth Social so the world could marvel at his negotiating prowess. He worded each letter exactly the same, using Find and Replace to change country names, so Cockburn will just quote the Libya letter here: “It is a Great Honor for me to send you this letter in that it demonstrates the strength and commitment of our Trading Relationship, and the fact that the United States of America has agreed to continue working with Libya, despite having a significant Trade Deficit with your great Country. Nevertheless, we have decided to move forward with you, but only with more balanced, and fair, TRADE.

Neal Pollack

Memes are legal again

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the conviction of Douglass Mackey for lack of evidence, remanding his case to a district court for immediate dismissal. The ruling marks a massive victory for shitposters everywhere. For those of you who are not extremely online or deeply obsessed with the Pilgrim’s Progress of First Amendment rights in America, Mackey is the online figure formerly known as “Ricky Vaughn” whom the Biden FBI arrested in 2021 for a tweet he posted in 2016 making fun of Hillary Clinton and spreading satirical information about “texting to vote.” The government said he was using "social media to spread disinformation relevant to the impending 2016 Presidential Election.

Rachel K. Paulose

Trump blocked from defunding Planned Parenthood

This week, a lone federal district court judge in Boston, Massachusetts, with nary a citation to the Constitution, statutes or the applicable Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, entered a temporary restraining order prohibiting the federal defunding of Planned Parenthood. The basis for Judge Indira Talwani’s order is left for the public to surmise. Perhaps the good judge will fill in the blanks before the next hearing planned in the case, within two weeks; or perhaps not, since TROs are generally not appealable. Either way, the judge’s barren two-page order, as it stands, is a textbook example of a lawless judiciary engaged in policymaking from the bench.